Powdered mixtures of dry ingredients are used in many applications including manufacturing and food processing, to note but a few. Depending on the desired powdered mixture, a number of mixing steps may be employed to obtain the desired final product. For example, several ingredients may be mixed in a first mixing step prior to mixing with other ingredients in subsequent mixing steps. Such staged mixing helps to prepare the mixture and eliminates extra mixing time that may result when large and different amounts of ingredients are all mixed together at one time.
Since different powdered ingredients may have widely varying properties, such powdered ingredients may respond quite differently to the same conditions. For example, powdered mixtures may have components with different particle size distributions and with different flow characteristics such that some of the ingredients may segregate out in normal flow channels. The staged mixing of ingredients may not be able to adequately accommodate mixtures with widely differing ingredient characteristics. Indeed, some mixtures may have constituent ingredients that will segregate out in normal flow channels even if those ingredients are not added until later mixing stages. Nonetheless, even if the ingredients do not segregate out, the staged mixing may still be problematic if a large quantity of powdered ingredients is to be mixed because a significant amount of time is often required to thoroughly mix larger volumes. Significant mixing times may increase the breakage or damage to ingredients due to the friction generated between the particles. The particle size of ingredients may break down during long mixing periods. For example, a certain percentage of an ingredient with a certain particle size may break down under long mixing periods such that a variety of particle sizes may be present after mixing. Such a variety in particle size may can cause problems with product waste, dust, and accurate measuring, among other issues.
As used herein, the term dosing refers to measuring, such as measuring a mixture of previously mixed ingredients. Dosing may further refer to the mixing of a variety of components in a manner such that the proper ratio of the various components is obtained. Specialized equipment has been sometimes used for combining the previously portioned ingredients and then delivering those combined ingredients. Such approaches were costly, time consuming, and bulky due to the additional equipment required for such a system configuration. Further, in several processes that employed a batch mixing system, the batch was moved from location to location depending on the equipment used. In one known configuration, a batch of material is moved from stage to stage by dropping the batch from an upper floor to a lower floor. For example, the force of gravity may be used to transfer the ingredients from a mixer to a packaging station. Thus, considering the breakage resulting from the longer mixing times and the breakage due to transfer of the ingredients, batch processing may result in a significant variation in the ingredients and that variation can require additional work to correct. In short, despite the complexity of the previous approaches, these approaches did not offer the reliability, configurability, consistency, and ease of use that was desired.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions and/or relative positioning of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of various embodiments. Also, common but well-understood elements that are useful or necessary in a commercially feasible embodiment are often not depicted to facilitate a less obstructed view of these various embodiments. It will further be appreciated that certain actions and/or steps may be described or depicted in a particular order of occurrence while those skilled in the art will understand that such specificity with respect to sequence is not actually required. It will also be understood that the terms and expressions used herein have the ordinary technical meaning as is accorded to such terms and expressions by persons skilled in the technical field as set forth above except where different specific meanings have otherwise been set forth herein.